Indira Gandhi Rashtriya Manav Sangrahalaya (National ... - IGRMS

Indira Gandhi Rashtriya Manav Sangrahalaya 279
rituals. As you perhaps know, I started a folk dance festival in the same spirit.
Unfortunately, none of these had been followed up as vigorously as they should
have been. Consequently, we have already lost a good deal. The suggestions you have
made on the last page are good ones. I think, it should be persuaded. The only
difficulty is that this year is one of the great financial stringency when every
programme is being cut to the very bone. However, the setting up a committee of
knowledgeable people will not need immediate finance, and can be considered. These
are my first thoughts. I shall write to you later on this.
(Mrs. Indira Gandhi)
July 2, 1974
On the advice of the Prime Minister, the Department of Culture, Government
of India, had asked the Anthropological Survey of India (An. S.I) to work on the
project since 1975 onwards and a nucleus Office was started from New Delhi in
March, 1977 for the project. During the same period a preliminary Plan Outline
of the proposed new Museum was published, after a series of meetings by experts.
The Plan-Outline was critical of the biasness of the existing conventional museums
in India. It said that the existing art and archaeological museums in the country
highlighted artistic traditions of India, and didn’t tell the story of evolution of
Indian civilization and about the varieties of cultural life in contemporary India.
The other types of museums dealing with natural history, science and industry
convey basic principles of their subjects, but tell very little of the man who has
created and developed civilizations. Therefore, the idea behind the ‘Museum of
Man’, would be to present an integrated vision of human life, not segmented
pictures determined by artificial disciplinary boundaries.
After a series of searches and deliberations at various levels, it was decided,
in 1978, to set up the ‘National Museum of Man’ (NMM) at Bhopal, the central
province of India. A site of about 200 acres offered by the State government of
Madhya Pradesh, at the ‘Shamla hills’, overlooking the main Bhopal lake, was
accepted and some portion of the site was occupied by early 1979. The Foundation
Stone of the new Museum was laid on 21 st April, 1979, by the then Union Minister,
Dr. P.C. Chunder. By March 1985, the organization was renamed as ‘Rashtriya
Manav Sangrahalaya (RMS). Again in 1993, it was re-christened as ‘Indira Gandhi
Rashtriya Manav Sangrahalaya (IGRMS), considering the seminal contributions
and involvement of the late Prime Minister in developing the Museum.
The museum-site at ‘Shamla hills’, is a very important geographical territory.
It is one of the chains of 31 hills in the Vindhyan range, infested with a large
number rock caves with evidence of pre-historic human settlements. The site
was once on a 30 mile long stretch of water, created by joining the streams of
river Kaliasot and Betwa, a water body which was drained in 30 years, after the
11 th century dam constructed for creating it, was cut, in course of one of the warlike
engagements in the 16 th century. Today Shamla hills is an oasis of heritage
related action and research initiatives. About a dozen cultural centres have come